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Beneath the Land
Headed to Halfgar It was a warm sunny day when the report came into the capital of clover. A small letter from a man named Gareth Waltz. He was a trader who often sold goods in the villages along the trails. The letter read as follows. Dear Reader, If this letter finds itself in the hands of someone outside of the Magic Knights, please deliver it to them at once. If you are a magic knight please bring this to your superiors. If you have none, read on. My name is Gareth Waltz, I trade in various cities along the outer rim of our territories, it's an awful swell job but I'll cut to the chase. Halfgar, a village I normally trade with near our east border, is gone. I can't explain it really, I'm not a mage or anything. But it just wasn't there. I'm deeply worried about the people there and I hope and pray you can send your troops to investigate this strange occurrence. Make Haste, Gareth Waltz. The contents of the urgent letter quickly made its rounds to the Magic Knight captains, who distributed the information to their squads and assigned the mission to the members they deemed most qualified to accept it. The selected representative from the Violet Orca squad was an eccentric mage from the kingdom's noble House Underwood. Key Underwood, known amongst the Clover Kingdom as the deranged heir of his psychotic family, was an unfavorable, yet high-ranking, member of the Violet Orca squad. Despite his negative reputation, Key was an extremely valuable Magic Knight who had managed to easily earn the rank of 3rd Class Senior Magic Knight in just a couple years. Typically, the Violet Orca squad were in charge of gathering and organizing intelligence for the sake of the kingdom, a task in which Key routinely played a major role. He was often chosen by his captain to execute missions for the squad that she felt only he was capable of completing. Simply put, Key Underwood didn't operate like other Magic Knights, which was a surprisingly useful trait when properly taken advantage of. His personality did not bare any semblance of stability or sanity, and he was widely regarded as quite brash, volatile, and unpredictable. However, equipped with his enormous reserves of magical power and diverse arsenal of useful spells, Key was the perfect candidate for the mission to investigate the vanishing village. That didn't mean he had to like it, though. "Tch." Key protested, making the displeased sound through his sharp, gritted teeth. He was in a dimly-lit hallway in the squad's headquarters that casted dramatic lightning on his creepy figure. He stood, with an unnerving smile that spanned the length of his face, listening to a fellow Violet Orca as they informed him of their captain's orders. As a member of this squad, Key excelled in solitary tasks and figured dragging someone along with him was just going to inhibit his unorthodox methods. He was so accustomed to either working alone or working with another member of his squad, but he didn't seem to have a say in the matter now. He knew he was going to have to go and represent the Violet Orca - and the Clover Kingdom - to the best of his ability. After receiving his instructions, he stifled a high-pitched giggle that made the other Violet Orca visibly uncomfortable. "Well, if I don't have any choice..." he said through his twisted smile. At Least You're Here Now The site where Halfgar once stood was an odd sight indeed. Between massive amounts of foliage sat a large spot of tan dirt, a clearing that was visibly unnatural. As Key approached the described location he would notice a man huddled by the tree line, peeking out at the area from a small campsite within the forest. He did not notice him. As per Captain Celestia's orders, Key was not supposed to engage the scene alone. He was instructed to wait until another Magic Knight from another squad arrived to accompany him and they would investigate the area together. But Key wasn't particularly keen on following instructions, and he figured he could interrogate the man all by himself. After all, the quicker he solved the case of the disappearing village, the quicker he could leave such a deplorable territory. "I don't like the mana in this place," he sneered. He kept his voice low, but it still retained its scratchy, high-pitched quality. Key's long cape swished as he threw his hand behind his back, unsheathing his grimoire from the belt around his waist. With his fierce eyes focused on his target, Key gripped his purple grimoire and stalked towards his campsite. As he strode along the forest, leaves and twigs crunched under his heavy, black boots. A persistent twitch imposed his left eye, making him look crazy like it usually did. Quite frankly, the tone he confronted the man with only supported this notion as well. "Hey, you! Tell me what happened here, and make it quick!" he hollered. He drew closer to the small campsite, making a peeved face as he beheld its shabbiness. As the heir to a noble family, and an inheritor of superior mana, such a distasteful display disgusted Key. For a second, he considered turning around and retracting from the mission entirely, but he reckoned it was too late to leave and that another Magic Knight would be arriving soon. "Ahh!" The man yelped as he stumbled backwards while attempting to turn, tripping over the remains of his campfire. He crashed to the ground letting out a huff as he hands gripped his ribs. "My apologies sir maaaaaaaaaahhhh...gic knight." He grumbled in pain as he pushed himself to his feet. "F..forgive me for asking but it has been days since I sent for help, no matter though at least you are here now." He let out a loud exhale as he gripped his ribs harder. "I am Garteh Waltz, pleasure to meet you sir." He extended a hand but quickly withdrew to grab his ribs again. "Oooh that is smarts. Nothing likes stones and wood to the old ribcage to really wake you up huh." While he talked, Key inspected the man up-and-down. The expression on his face confessed his disdain for lower-class people and their inability to fend for themselves. Through gritted teeth, Key made his signature "tch" sound and gripped his grimoire tighter. He didn't care what the peasant's name was and his injured ribs were apparently of no concern to him either "Get on with telling me what happened already. I don't have all day, and I want to leave this filthy place as fast as I can," he said harshly. "Uh umm yeah of course." Gareth huffed. "A week ago I came by here, traded with the people and left on my merry way. I come back and it's all just gone. Nothing here but that patch of dirt and a sinking feeling in my stomach. I don't know much else, that's why I called you Knights in." Irritation boiled inside of Key like hot water in a steaming kettle. The commoner had summoned him with absolutely no lead to go off of, meaning Key was going to have to solve this whole ordeal with no help. "And you think I want to waste my time dealing with a dead-end situation like this?!" he blurted out, poking his finger at the Gareth's weak chest. Leaves from the surrounding trees rattled overhead, shaking wildly from the ferocity of Key's obnoxious voice. "I've never even visited this disgusting place; how do you expect me to know where it's vanished to?!" he yelled, narrowing his purple eyes on the man. His eyelids drooped and the mood suddenly shifted drastically - a strange, yet standard, occurrence when interacting with Key. His demeanor constantly changed, making it difficult to get a read on the bipolar Magic Knight. Now, instead of erratic and capricious, Key just looked annoyed. "Fine,'' he said begrudgingly. His left eye adopted its persistent twitch again to further express his aggravation. "I didn't expect much help from you, anyway. Just leave it to me, peasant," he muttered, striding towards the dirt hole where Halfgar used to be. As he walked away, his grey-and-gold cape bounced behind him to illustrate his frustration. Key didn't wait for the commoner to express his appreciation or offer any more useless information. Generally, he wasn't the type to show compassion towards those he considered lesser than him and often treated commoners with lethargic apathy. This was no exception. Gareth was taken aback by the harshness of Key's words but the man just bowed and stepped back. It would be better to be insulted by him and still have him help. "Sorry sir. Its my bad." He coughed, moving himself down to sit by his tent. As Key drew closer to the area it definitely seemed odd. The dirt was rough and cracked in some places, it smelled off too not like the rest of the forest, it smelled more like a town. There was also the faint trace of magic humming in the air. It was far from a usual clearing. Mysterious Mana When he finally reached the spot, he stopped in his tracks. "The mana here is different than it was by that old geezer bastard," he remarked bluntly. "Still, I don't like it here at all. I can sense lousy peasants unloved by mana used to live here," he said. His indigo eyes unenthusiastically scanned the area for the source of the disembodied presence of mana, but he found nothing. "Even so, the old geezer bastard said there was a village here. And so far, I see nothing like that," he grimaced. While firmly grasping his book of spells, Key steadied his gaze on the crevice in front of him. He opened his left hand, authorizing his grimoire to flip to the appropriate spell as it emanated a dim purple aura. He wished to waste no time in getting to the bottom of the strange presence of mana he felt, and he knew just how he'd do it. Hopefully, then he would get some answers as to where Halfgar went. The grimoire stopped turning its pages on a spell Key used quite frequently on tactical missions. It was quite useful in instances in which he had to expose traps or instances in which he needed to uncover hidden magic that was at work in a given area. In this case, he was planning to do the latter. Maybe if he did, he could find out if the village had just been turned invisible, or if someone had used a spell to make the village sink underground or something like that. "Ash Magic: Perceiving Pluto," hissed the Violet Orca Magic Knight. At the sound of his unsettling voice, Key's grimoire began spilling out streams of his signature purple ashes. His Ash Magic filed out in front of him, extending towards his area of interest. The indentation in the earth, as well as the air above, was filled with a very thin layer of Key's magic, somewhat resembling a screen of purple smoke. He then proceeded to wait as his spell spread to reveal the position, or influence, of outside magic. The thin purple smoke enclosed the area, resonating as it soaked over the ambient mana. It revealed to him several things. Firstly the ambient mana was not natural to the environment, it was from a spell. Secondly the mana was leftover from an attack of some sort, it was not actively working at this moment. Finally it was earth magic. "So it was Earth Magic that wrecked this place," Key postulated, shutting his grimoire with his left hand. Now that he was starting to get somewhere in his search, the eerie grin that usually dwelled on his face reappeared. "It must've taken a powerful Earth Magic to level a whole village like this. And with just one attack spell, at that," he commended, sounding more impressed than upset. Through his sadistic smirk, Key let out another "tch" sound. He knew if he found the Earth Magic mage that was responsible for this, he'd have to face off against them to reclaim the dirty village and complete his mission. Not that he was thrilled to find the missing village or anything, but Key couldn't help but anticipate a great magic fight between two strong mages. "I'll find out whose mana is superior. You don't even stand a chance," he boasted aloud. Now to find out who casted the attack spell on the village. "I should ask that old geezer bastard if he saw who could've done this. Maybe he's good for something, after all." He giggled. Turning on his black- booted heels, the Magic Knight turned around and walked back over to the campsite Gareth set up. "Hey, old geezer bastard!" he shouted when he got close enough. He stopped in front of the lone tent, his left eye twitching while it gazed at the smaller man. "You seen any Earth Magic users come around here lately?" he asked abruptly. __FORCETOC__ "Oh umm let me see." The old man racked his memory. "Not that I recall Sir. What makes you say there was earth magic involved?"